Manning holds the ambulance to deliver one final directive to me.
MANNING
If anybody shows up at the hospital for her—I mean anybody . . . ID them and hold them till I get there. Feed them any line of bullshit you need to, but don’t let them get away.
Why has Manning been ordered back to the crime scene? He is not only the initial officer on site, and thus technically responsible for securing the scene (which he has failed to do by absenting himself in a vehicle pursuit), but he is also a witness and indeed a participant in the flight of the suspected killer. Manning has grappled physically with this individual. He has received a disabling blow from the perpetrator, the consequence of which was to permit the perp to escape. Beyond this, Manning has accompanied the suspected murderer to the scene as his invited guest. In other words, whether he likes it or not, whether he has asked for it or not, Manning has become the law enforcement epicenter of this catastrophe.
How big is the story of the Rebbe’s murder? By the time my ambulance reaches Maimonides, which is no more than twenty minutes after the actual killing, the tale is headlining on Buzzfeed, Politico, the Atlantic, Reddit, JPost, Breitbart, Upworthy, and Viral Nova. WCBS, WNBC, WABC, WPIX, plus Fox 5, CNN, MSNBC, Amazon, and Al Jazeera have all made it “breaking news” with a banner, a chyron, and its own music sting. Social media is on fire. Both New York senators are being flown in by helicopter, or will be within the hour, to the site of sorrow. A tweet from the mayor vows he’ll be on hand in twenty minutes. By dawn every Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, and Muslim leader in the tri-state area will have either spoken or appeared on TV or via Facebook or Twitter expressing shock, outrage, and grief.
At Maimonides I remain joined to our mystery woman at the hip throughout the admissions process and the initial physical examinations, including X-rays, concussion protocols, EKG, and wheeling her to the ladies’ loo. A female patrol officer from the Six-Six joins me. By the manual, she should be the one to stand sentry over our mystery woman but, heeding Manning’s orders, I refuse to be dislodged.
Two hours on, still no positive identification has been made. Despite numerous excellent prints having been acquired from the Hi-Top, CSU has so far made no matches to databases in the U.S. or Europe. FaceRec continues to yield zip. Even the woman’s personal effects come up goose eggs. No ID, no phone. She has a wallet but it’s as scrubbed as her identity on the web and in the administrative world—no credit cards, no family snapshots, not even cash, just street scrip, traceable to nowhere and nothing.
I have gleaned only two insights in my initial three hours as our female’s guardian. The first comes in the ambulance.
PARAMEDIC #1
Hey, Detective . . . want something for your report?
The medic turns the unconscious woman’s left wrist into the light.
Suicide scars.
PARAMEDIC #2
Pro-style. Not across the veins but parallel.
The second medic calls my attention to the scar tissue. It has faded to differing hues.
PARAMEDIC #2
Multiple attempts. On both wrists. And take a squint at this.
Along the length of both forearms: burn scars.
ME
From which you conclude what?
PARAMEDIC #2
Self-mutilation?
(shrugs)
This babe’s had a rough life.
The woman remains unconscious throughout the ambulance trip and for twenty-four minutes by my watch after entry to the ER. I have handcuffed her per protocol. When the medics settle her on a gurney, I secure her by one wrist to the rail. Down the hall we troop toward an examination room. Suddenly our woman snaps alert. It takes her several seconds to realize where she is. Then, with a cry like an animal, she claws herself upright, yanks the IV tube from her arm, and catapults off the trolley.
The cuff on her left wrist jerks her back. The gurney totters. I tackle her from one side; a six-foot orderly undercuts her from the other. Two nurses right the rolling rig and expertly flip her back onto it. Apparently they have done this before.
I don’t know what juice they inject our woman with, but her eyeballs roll back into their sockets like pinballs. She drops dead-weight onto the trolley. A second IV, this time delivering a stronger punch, is affixed.
Another hour passes in paperwork (for me and the patrol officer from the Six-Six) and medical evaluations for the woman. A team from DivSix arrives—Kiriakin and two Second Graders, both of whom have hit on me in the past and now hate my guts. They dismiss the patrol officer and turn to shoo me.
SECOND GRADER #1
The girl’s ours now, Dewey. Take a hike.
ME
I’m here till Manning relieves me.
Kiriakin gets on the horn to Gleason, who’s on-site at the Rebbe’s now and can’t or won’t respond. Gleason’s tech sergeant, though, reminds me on his own that the SWAT raid on the Russian Mafia is slated for 2230 tomorrow, with prep commencing four hours from now at Emergency Service Unit, Brooklyn South.
KIRIAKIN
Go home and get some sleep.
ME
I’m comfortable here.
Finally, near 0400, our woman is admitted to a private room on the ninth floor of the Gellman Building. I flop into the chair beside the bed.
SECOND GRADER #2
You staying here?
ME
You see me leaving?
The trio grunt in aggravation. Kiriakin and one detective vacate for coffee and donuts; the other takes up a post in the hall outside the room.
What a fucking night.
The SWAT raid is for real, though. I must be in the briefing room without fail three hours from now. Can I catch a few Z’s? Should I? I’m too tired to even worry about Manning.
I close my eyes for three minutes and begin dreaming immediately about our woman running away. I jerk awake in a sweat. But she’s there in the bed, cuffed to the rail, with an IV drip-dripping into her left arm.
I realize, with a shiver, that I’m concerned for her.
Yeah, it happens. Somehow over the past seven hours, this unknown female has become “mine.”
My job is to protect her.
I’m not gonna let Kiriakin and his porker henchmen peek under her gown or make shitty cracks about her while she’s out cold.
Who the hell is this woman anyway?
I get up and take a photo of her.
I stand at the foot of the bed and snap off a shot full-length, then cross to her side and crank off two more of her face.
I never realized the damage an airbag can do. It saved her life, yeah. But its explosive deployment has cracked two ribs and nearly broken her collarbone. Both eyes have been blacked. The left side of her face is purple from jaw to eyeline.
I lean over and fix her hair, or at least tug it out of her eyes.
She’s, what . . . thirty?
Good skin.
Good teeth.
Somebody paid for orthodontia.
I’m just snapping another pic when the woman stirs and opens her eyes.
She says my name.
WTF?
Her skull sinks back into the pillow. Her lids droop shut.
ME
What’s your name? How do you know mine?
No response. I try for thirty seconds, lifting her head, speaking softly.
Again she manages to surface.
WOMAN
Help me.
Kiriakin will be back in minutes. I try to get the woman to speak more but the sedative is too strong. She manages to babble a half phrase or two . . .
She wants me to contact someone.
I tell her I can’t.
ME
I’m a cop, honey. Not your girlfriend.
But I put a pencil in her hand and hold a pad beneath it. The woman struggles to write.
AMOS BEN-DAVID
Her handwriting is squiggles.
ME
Amos Ben-David? The anthropologist? From
Israel?
The woman manages a nod. I move closer.
ME
Why were you at the Rebbe’s tonight? Did you know what was going to happen?
She tries to speak. I’m bending over her, straining to hear.
WOMAN
. . . followed him . . .
ME
Followed who? Instancer?
WOMAN
Manning.
ME
You followed Manning? Why would you—
The woman’s eyes roll shut. I seize her hand.
ME
Stay with me! Don’t crash! Why were you at the Georgetown murder scene? Why did you shout-out about the “LV” sign?
I squeeze the woman’s hand harder. No response. Harder. I’m bending close, with my ear inches above her lips . . .
KIRIAKIN
What is this? Lesbo ladies’ night?
Kiriakin and his two stooges tromp in and take over. They proceed to give me a yard of shit—about me sticking here, about me being Manning’s flunky, about refusing to defer sufficiently to their male sense of entitlement. Manning’s in trouble with Gleason, they tell me. He’ll be off the case by morning and so will I.
I make no peep about Amos Ben-David. But my skull is spinning. How does a woman with no name and no home know one of the most celebrated scientists in the world?
Kiriakin pulls rank and kicks me out.
In the corridor I change my mind about helping our girl.
I find a corner and pull up one of the pix I took of her. I attach the shot to a text and, after a quick search under AMOS BEN-DAVID, send it to him via Facebook Messenger, Instagram DM, and to his mailbox at the Ecology Department of Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv.
This woman, identity unknown, is asking for you.
Maimonides Hospital, NYC.
I leave my return address in the clear.
Then I shoot the following text to Uribe at CSU, cc’ing Manning:
No print match on mystery girl in US, Euro databases?
Try Israel. A hunch.
Kiriakin emerges into the corridor.
KIRIAKIN
You still here, sweetheart?
He orders me to get my ass to ESU South Brooklyn for the SWAT briefing. I hold up a moment, adopting a respectful tone.
ME
Sir, you’re Russian, right?
KIRIAKIN
Two generations ago.
ME
What’s your take on this case? I mean the boss’s fixation on—
KIRIAKIN
The boss don’t have no “fixations,” Dewey.
ME
You know what I mean, sir. Is this Russian thing bullshit or what?
Kiriakin is basically a good guy, despite his substandard taste in team members. He straightens and fixes me with a sober glower.
KIRIAKIN
I’ll tell you what is bullshit—your hero Manning chasing leads he’s been told to fuck off from.
Dawn’s first storm-shrouded glimmer peeks through the grating at the end of the hall.
KIRIAKIN
Wanna keep your job, Dewey? Ask yourself who signs your professional evaluations . . . then do exactly what the fuck he tells you to.
BOOK FOUR
THE SERVICE
15
EMERGENCY SERVICE UNIT
HERE’S WHAT YOU NEVER THINK OF as a woman when you embark upon a career in law enforcement:
The clothes.
Fashion. Style. What the hell are you gonna wear? My first day assigned to Manning, I clomped in in heels I had selected deliberately as the blockiest, clunkiest I could possibly be seen in public in.
MANNING
What is this? Vogue magazine?
Manning takes one peek and orders me to redefine my concept of appropriate footwear.
MANNING
You’re a cop, Dewey. You want heels that can stomp a Puerto Rican to death.
I’m shocked.
ME
(pissed off)
How ’bout a Filipino?
MANNING
Flips? A waste of shoe leather.
This is day one on the job for me, this action going down by the Nespresso machine with detectives and tech personnel sniggering from all corners. I can see that Manning is playing intentionally on the stereotype of the chauvinist Irish cop. Still it hurts.
He sends me after work to a haberdashery called Rubidoux’s on 110th and Amsterdam. The place is row after row of shapeless female business suits—navy, black, gray, pinstripe. Even the sizes are faux-male: S, M, L, and XL. The salesman (there are no women) asks simply, “How many?”
What exactly are the fashion guidelines for gal detectives on duty?
No earrings (they might snag on something, or get yanked by a perp). No jewelry. No nail polish (except clear). No nail art.
No necklines lower than your throat. No push-up bras. No cleavage.
No rings other than a wedding band.
No skirts. Slacks only.
Weapon worn in holster on hip or at small of back, never carried in bag.
Hair short or up, or pulled back into a bun. (French twist okay if it’s “high and tight.”)
No ponytails.
No smoking.
No drinking.
No gum chewing.
No hands in pockets.
In public, you stand—always.
Except when interviewing, sit only in a vehicle or at your desk.
MANNING
I know you think this is bullshit, Dewey. But a detective is like a priest in the eyes of the community. You have to simultaneously command respect and be accessible to confidences. Particularly you as a woman, because other females will look to you to understand their point of view. They’ll open up to you, when they never would to a man.
Here is what an idiot I am: I invite Manning, a week later, down to my loft as a getting-to-know-you courtesy.
He accepts, God knows why.
The first place Manning cruises is my closet, which is (my fault) half exposed beside the open space that holds my bed.
MANNING
The Lo! This is yours?
“The Lo” is short for Polo. Ralph Lauren Polo. These jackets, sweaters, and gooses (goose-down jackets) were the supreme hip-hop fashion statement of the ’90s and well into the new century—all boosted from Bloomies and other upscale outlets by street crews from Brooklyn who called themselves with pride “Lo Lifes.”
ME
They belonged to my father.
Manning scans the hanging items, fixing at last on a shelf that holds a monogrammed cigarette case: MGV.
MANNING
Marcus Garvey Village. Your old man’s black?
ME
He died.
MANNING
Where?
I don’t answer.
MANNING
I’m sorry.
Manning takes me out to dinner that night, the only time I’ve ever sat across from him and consumed a meal off actual plates and dishes. Manning, I can see, is moved by the sight of the threads in my closet—and the vanished era they evoke.
MANNING
Did you know your father?
My expression answers.
MANNING
I probably did. I was in Brownsville then. A beat cop.
He asks if I ever wear the Lo.
ME
Around the loft sometimes.
MANNING
Never on the street?
ME
No.
Manning asks what the clothes mean to me. I have a serious answer, but I’m reluctant to verbalize it.
MANNING
Go ahead. You can talk straight with me.
I tell Manning that I understand and even respect the brilliance of fighting poverty and powerlessness with style. With fashion.
ME
Those crews in their day were the flyest thing on the planet.
MANNING
But.
ME
In the
end it didn’t work. They died. They wound up in Clinton.
Manning regards me thoughtfully.
MANNING
So you applied to the academy.
The check comes. Manning grabs it.
MANNING
You know I’m jerking your chain when I talk like that about flips and Ricans?
Outside, he walks me to my stop.
MANNING
Don’t sell the Lo. Ever.
I’m recalling that evening now, two and a half hours after being relieved by Kiriakin at Maimonides Medical Center, as a Brooklyn South armory sergeant sets into my fists a Mossberg 500 ZMB “Zombie Killer” shotgun and dubiously ogles my five-foot-four, 125-pound frame.
The SWAT raid on the Russian Mafia kicks off in fourteen hours. Am I really ready for this?
It’s Saturday morning, 0830. The storm has slammed into the city, building from Cat 4 to Cat 5 to possible Superstorm. Per Gleason’s instructions, all DivSix personnel assigned to the warrant service have assembled at Emergency Service Unit South Brooklyn, then proceeded in order of seniority to Weapons and Equipment Draw, where our two teams of four and one team of two (Manning and me) have been issued IBAs, individual body armor—not the Kevlite sleeveless vests that tac officers and bike cops wear but military-issue flak jackets, eleven-pounders, designed to protect against shrapnel, ball bearings, and everything up to and including a Quds Force IED.
The raid on the headquarters of the Russian Mafia is slated for 2230 this evening. The teams will be briefed here at ESU, then rebriefed at the assembly point near Coney Island, where they will link up with the operators who will lead our teams in the actual assault. From there the combined force will proceed in convoy to the target—a complex on Ocean Avenue in Brighton Beach constituted of two homes, an office, and a social club.
36 Righteous Men Page 8
